Let Go
by Oh-Juice
Summary: Finchel. Misunderstandings. Starts a little slow, but it gets better! Please leave reviews; I'd be forever grateful.  :


_Hey people , this is my first fanfic in a while. It's going to be a little bit Puckelberry filled at first, but trust me, it's all just a little bit of angst for Finchel. Set after **A Very Glee Christmas.**_

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Rachel Berry smoothed the crinkles out of her skirt as she stood from her seat. "Noah," She called as she got up from her seat, putting on a megawatt smile as she bounded after him, her ballet shoes clicking as she left the choir room.

"Yeah, Berry?" He responded, putting on a usual slightly bored expression as he looked towards her. She didn't understand why everyone seemed to give her that look; she didn't think she was a boring person. In fact, she thought she was a very interesting person. When she got famous, she planned on having someone write her a biography, like Barbra Streisand (She'd read the book, "Streisand: A Biography" through at least seven times by then, and she'd purchased it in just September), yet people still seemed to pass her by like she was some sort of annoying beast. Sure, she talked more than most people, but they should be just happy to know her while she's in her prime. Or at least, that's what the stardom-crazed part of Rachel wanted to think, but by then a softer side of her seemed to show more.

"I think we should do a duet." She said with a nod. "You possess some of the best male vocals in the group, and though I'd usually be asking-…" She cut off, but quickly regained her composure, barely missing a beat. "Though I'd usually be asking more experienced individuals, since it's true that you've had a total of one solo song for the club… I think we'd make a good pair, for singing purposes."

"What's the catch?" He asked with a snicker, turning around to meet her eye. "I mean, why not just do a solo yourself?"

She was taken aback a little by that. Rachel pursed her lips before getting back into the rhythm of her step down the hall behind him. "Even I know that duets are just as important as, well, solos." She paused before saying a little quieter. "Okay, okay. So… So Finn and I broke up a while ago, and-"

"You're looking to make him jealous?" Puck replied with a nod.

"No," She retorted quickly, shaking her head. "No, that was the reason we broke up in the first place… Us. But that's not the point. I happen to know that you still have something for Quinn… And I was thinking, maybe we could help each other out."

"How about no."

"Listen… Have you seen Quinn and Finn lately? Even with Sam still in the picture, they're… They're getting closer, and it doesn't look good. You know, for us." She said quietly, her eyes falling a little bit. She hated showing weakness, but she knew Noah pretty well… He was probably the closest thing left to a friend to the girl, besides maybe Kurt.

Puck obviously didn't appreciate the comment thrown into his face. But she had a point. "You mean, like, sing a duet together, for them?" Puck cocked an eyebrow before shrugging his shoulders with his usual nonchalant attitude. "Well, I mean, I could care less about how you and Frankenteen are getting along… But you've got a point with the whole Quinn thing. I mean, I don't want her back. No way, that's not me. The whole mate-for-life thing isn't how I roll, even if the rest of you have that whole soul-mate thing going on. But Ken and Barbie annoy the crap out of everyone, so I'd be doing people a favor if I at least caused some problems there."

"Well … If that's what will get you to collaborate in my plan, then so be it." She said with a satisfactory nod.

Puck gave her a cursory nod as he rounded the corner towards the lockerroom.

Rachel knew that that was his slightly rude way of agreeing to it, and she forced a smile. "Sounds good, Noah. I'll meet you in the choir room after school?"

"Whatever," He replied, bored with the conversation, and continued down the hall until he walked into the boys locker room and shut the door swiftly behind him.

* * *

Finn blinked.

His locker was a complete and total disaster. He didn't even know how he kept books and crap in there before, because now it was completely filled to the brim with old papers, doodles, dance steps he'd written down, old empty paper bags from lunches past, a football jersey, and at least five pounds of other unidentifiable items that were stuffed to the back.

He was about to dive in to try to find his lucky gym socks, but he was interrupted as he heard people speaking behind him. I mean, usually, he wouldn't be paying attention; the boy was a little dense. But no, he heard these voices distinctly. His eyebrows pulled together, and he glanced behind him.

Puck and Rachel were talking, and his jaw tightened. A few months ago, he wouldn't have given a damn about Rachel and Puck talking. I mean, he thought that him and Puck were kind of cool again, and he loved Rachel. You know, he trusted her. But now? Now the mere thought of them being in the same room made him want to hurl or kick a chair. He glanced around, seeing Santana at her locker near his.

"Overprotective, Hulk?" She asked mockingly.

"No," He retorted, averting his eyes and attention from the couple in the hall. "I could care less. I mean … Couldn't care less." He always got that saying wrong. Either way, he shrugged it off, and turned his attention back to Santana. I mean, she was a bit of a royal bitch and called him names sometimes, and she /did/ get a boob job lately (so he guessed that they were like cinderblocks by then, anyways), but she was still kind of hot in a spicy latino hot-sauce kind of way. Not that he was even remotely interested; he just wanted out of this whole girl thing for a while. They caused nothing but trouble, he thought to himself, in a little bit of denial towards the whole Puckelberry situation.

"If you say so, but it looks like they're going to be doing the dirty by fifth period if-"

"-I don't care" He snapped quickly and shut her out. She might have been right … But he didn't want to hear it. He turned back to his locker. Crap.

This whole thing was such shit. He couldn't believe that after Finn and Rachel had broken up due to Puck, she'd still hang around the guy like it never happened, and still have the nerve to pine after him. Didn't she know that Puck was the one who had ruined it all in the first place? He just couldn't understand why she'd do this to him.

"You know, if you want to make them jealous, I'm always an option… For a price."

"That worked out so well last time," He muttered to himself before turning to her. "Listen, Santana, I just kind of want to be alone."

She gave him a roll of her eyes and walked away, clearly offended that he didn't want to tap that.

He groaned. Why were girls so cryptic and difficult? He swore that if he just gave them up all together, he'd be a happier person… But at the same time, he'd be a very lonely person. It'd suck. So either way, he was screwed.

Finally, after sifting through the mess for about five or so minutes, he found his socks. When he looked back to the couple, Rachel was smiling, and Puck was walking with her. He didn't know if she caught his glance or not, but he felt his hands coil up at his sides, and he slammed his locker shut as he briskly walked the opposite way of the couple and off to football practice.

Fuck that.

* * *

"Puck, as much as I appreciate your improvisions with the song, I'd really appreciate it more if you just cooperated with my costume choice... We need to match, or we'll just look silly."

"I'm not wearing anything with pink, stars, or an animal of any kind on it, Berry." He narrowed his eyes at her.

They'd been practicing at Rachel's house for at least two hours by then. At first they'd just sang. Then they started to discuss it, and things got a little out of hand. They didn't agree on anything.

"Well now, that's just rude." Rachel sighed slightly. She hated this. Why couldn't they just cooperate for a while? Or at least, why couldn't he? Rachel knew what she was doing; she'd been taking acting lessons, vocal lessons, and had a wonderful stage presence since she was three months old and won her first dancing competition. Of course she knew what she was doing, and Puck was practically insulting her by not listening to her direction.

"Listen, okay, Berry?" He said, shifting as he sat up on the edge of the bed. "You're lucky I'm even helping you with this, so we do this my way, or I'm out."

She pursed her lips. Did he just do that? Did he seriously just use her coined Rachel-Berry-Potencial-Storm-Out technique? On her?

"Fine," She let out an exasperated sigh. "What do you want to do?"

"No costumes," He said. "No more practice... We must have sung this song, like, fifty times by now-"

"Nineteen actually. I was hoping to go over it at least twenty five by the end of the night."

"Okay," He mumbled in an annoyed tone, "We must have sung this song, like, _nineteen_ times by now. Lastly, we don't announce who we're singing it to."

She blinked, looking at him like he was insane. "What? Why?"

"Yeah, I _really_ want the entire school knowing I want back in Ms. Preggo-Her-Eggo's pants." He rolled his eyes.

"But I could just say that mine's to Finn..."

"So that they can ask why the hell I'm up on stage?"

Rachel thought. This threw off her entire scheme... But maybe Finn would get it on his own. Maybe she didn't need to be blatantly obvious with the dopey boy like she sometimes needed to be. Maybe he'd get it on his own ... Maybe. She had to have some faith in him if this was going to work. Plus, if she didn't comply with what Noah wanted, then he'd have to find another solo song, and she doubted she'd find another one with the same amount of intensity, feeling, and lyricism as this one in such a short amount of time that would appeal to the general public.

"Fine," She said. "Fine, we'll cut the part about us singing to other people short... But we're going to match. Deal?"

He rolled his eyes.

"Deal."

* * *

The talk in the hall really got to Finn. She was moving on already, and Finn needed to too.

I mean, that didn't mean what he thought it meant before. Apparently "moving on" wasn't code for "date someone else", but for letting the first person go. So Finn was doing a Rachel-clean-out of his room. And he, like, never cleaned his room, so this was a little drastic. Even his mom was impressed.

First, his closet. Goodbye, chapstick she'd dropped on her way out of his house. Into the box it went. Then when he checked under his bed, he found a sticky note that he remembered she put on her little gifts for him sometimes, like the banana bread she used to bake for him or cookies. It said, "Have a spectacular day! And be safe in football, I don't want to have to sing to you in the hospital or sign a cast before I start signing autographs. - Rachel" with a little star after her name. He remembered thinking it was funny that she couldn't even leave a little note like most people might, but actually had to go onto the back of the sticky note to finish her thought. He also remembered wondering how much money she spent on those gold stars from Staples per year.

After going through his bookshelf (surprise, surprise, nothing there; he hadn't actually used that bookshelf in a long, long time), his covers, his nightstand, and his desk, he'd found only a few things. Another star sticker, and a picture of them at the beach over the summer. He tried not to dwell on them though. Into the box they went.

"Honey, would you like some tomato soup?"

"Naw, mom... I'm busy," He called back down the staircase to his mother. She probably thought he was playing Xbox or something.

By the time he was done scavenging his room for any sort of memory, he'd had a small cardboard box filled with small things she'd left behind, or things that reminded him of her, or things he just plain cared about. It hurt a little, but he needed them gone.

If Rachel could get over him so easily, he needed to man up and get over her too, he thought to himself.

So he put the box next to the garbage bags outside, and went back up to his room. He felt queasy... He didn't honestly like the idea of a dump truck taking all of his stuff, since he was just a little sentimental and honestly a bit of a packrat, but he needed this.

In a few hours, the belongings were gone, and he was alone again.

But when he glanced over at his nightstand, he saw a familiar CD lying there that he must have missed. It was pink, and it had the words "Faithfully - Journey" written on the front of it with perminent marker, and a star was drawn on since if she put an actual star on, it wouldn't play.

"Dammit..." He said, and put his hands on his face.

He didn't think he had the heart to throw that away.


End file.
